Lost in Play

The game was developed by Happy Juice Games as its first game over the course of three and a half years, primarily by its co-founders Yuval Markovich, Oren Rubin, and Alon Simon. The trio wanted to showcase children's imagination, with a focus on art and animation, and to make the game accessible to children and players unfamiliar with adventure games. They purposely avoided having a standard narrative structure to make it feel like a game being invented by children. Happy Juice Games connected with newly formed publisher Joystick Ventures after a few years of development, which funded the expansion of the studio to finish the game. Released for macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows in August 2022, for Android and iOS in July 2023, and for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in August 2024. Critics gave the game positive reviews, especially for its aesthetics and creativity, but had mixed opinions on the length and difficulty of gameplay. It was nominated in categories at the 38th Golden Joystick Awards and the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and won the Developer Choice Award at the 2022 IndieCade Awards. Apple named it the Best iPad Game of 2023 and gave it an Apple Design Award for Innovation in 2024.

• Title — Lost in Play • Developer — Happy Juice Games • Publisher — Joystick Ventures Snapbreak Games (Android, iOS) • Designer — Yuval Markovich Oren Rubin Alon Simon • Composer — Alon Kaplan Naor Hazan • Released — macOS, Switch, Windows August 10, 2022 Android, iOS July 12, 2023 PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 August 10, 2024 • Genre — Point-and-click adventure game • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — macOS, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

• Illustration — Toto interacting with a character. The frog is requesting a can opener, which the player has in the open inventory at the top. Lost in Play is a point-and-click adventure game in which the player controls two young siblings, Gal and Toto, as they engage in a session of imaginative make-believe around their house and a fantastical representation of their neighborhood. How to progress through the game is conveyed through cartoon-style visuals and gameplay, as no dialogue or narration is present in the game. Characters, including both the children and non-player characters such as neighbors, birds, goblins, and monsters communicate in a gibberish language or use gestures, pictorial symbols, and noises to communicate. The game is divided into 15 episodes, or scenes, such as the children's house, a park with a giant bird, the bottom of the ocean, and a goblin village. Scenes sometimes repeat thematic elements, such as goblins, frogs, and a magic crown, but the settings are often largely unrelated to each other. The first half of the game follows the children venturing out of their house to play, while the second half has them following a map back to their home before nightfall. In each episode the player controls one of the children—or on occasion swaps between both—and moves them around the areas of a scene, collecting items and solving puzzles with them. Many puzzles are separate minigames, such as games of cards, cornering checkers pieces on a board, or assembling airship components, while others involve using clues from the environment in the scene directly. A hint system in the game gives clues for the next puzzle to solve in an episode.

Lost in Play was developed by Happy Juice Games, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based studio, as its first game over the course of three and a half years. It was designed by studio co-founders Yuval Markovich, Oren Rubin, and Alon Simon, who were the principal developers of the game. Rubin and Simon were animators and designers who had previously worked on The Office Quest, a 2018 point-and-click adventure game, while Markovich was a programmer and founder of mobile game developer Nitako Games. The team wanted to create a game with a high degree of quality, but did not add any other developers during the initial phases to keep costs low. The trio initially felt that the project would take around half a year to complete, but then spent the first year of development self-funding a prototype, before looking for funding and a publisher. After initial discussions with publishers fell through during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Happy Juice Games began promoting the game itself on social media to attract attention. They were discovered by Justin Berenbaum, manager of a project by video game financial technology company Xsolla to connect developers with investors. When Xsolla partnered with venture capital company Nazca to form the publisher Joystick Ventures, it agreed to fund and publish Lost in Play, which was first announced in early 2022. With the funding, Happy Juice Games hired additional staff, including writers, programmers, animators, musicians, and voice actors. The initial concept for the game was to showcase children's imagination, with a focus on art and animation. All three designers were parents, and Toto and Gal were based on Rubin's children. They wanted it to "feel like two siblings playing a game" of make-believe, and so purposely avoided following a standard narrative structure but instead have scenes and concepts shifting from one to the next. After deciding that the game was "too cute", the team added story elements where the siblings grow frustrated with each other, with the world briefly becoming less fantastical in the process. They chose a cartoon art style to emphasize the feeling of childhood, and were inspired by the contemporary cartoons Gravity Falls, Hilda, and Over the Garden Wall, as well as media from their youth like 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother. They tried to make the game accessible to children and players unfamiliar with adventure games, relying on visual cues rather than written storytelling. The hint system was added to keep players from being stuck or losing immersion in the game by looking up answers online. Lost in Play was announced at the Future Games Show in June 2022, and was released for macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows on August 10, 2022. It was published for Android and iOS by Snapbreak Games on July 12, 2023, and for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 by Joystick Ventures on August 10, 2024. It was re-released for the Apple Arcade subscription service on June 5, 2025 as Lost in Play+.

Accolades • Year — Award — Category — Result • 2022 — 38th Golden Joystick Awards — Best Visual Design • DevGAMM Awards — Best Indie Game • Excellence in Visual Design • Grand Prize • IndieCade Awards — Developer Choice Award • 2023 — 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards — Family Game of the Year • Apple App Store Awards — Best iPad Game • 2024 — Apple Design Awards — Innovation